India tops in suicide numbers, says WHO

India is the suicide hotspot of the world, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) report, which said that around 2.58 lakh people took their own lives, the highest for any country across the globe. The WHO figures, however, do not match with the official records. The WHO’s figure is higher by 1.12 lakh compared to the 1.35 lakh suicides reported by India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2012. The WHO said 1,58,098 men and 99,977 women committed suicide in India in 2012, while the NCRB said that 88,453 men and 46,992 women committed suicide. The WHO put India’s suicide rate at 21.1 per 1 lakh people. "Most suicides in the world occur in the south-east Asia region (39% of those in low and middle-income countries) with India accounting for the highest number of suicides overall in 2012,” the WHO report said. Deccan Herald